Women Enterprise Fund is a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency in the Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Development established in August 2007, to provide accessible and affordable credit to support women start or expand business for wealth and employment creation. The Fund also provides business support services such as capacity building, marketing, promotion of linkages and infrastructure support.
Within a span of four (4) years this commitment has been actualized in 2011 when the Fund emerged the winner of the Millennium Development Goals Award for outstanding achievement on promoting Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.
The Women Enterprise Fund wants to lead the way in promoting public awareness and accountability. In publicizing its performance targets the Fund will be fulfilling the constitutional requirement under section 35 (1) which states “that every person has the right of access to information held by state” and subsection (3) which states that “the state shall publish and publicize any important information affecting the nation.”
Women Enterprise Fund (the Fund) was established in August 2007 as a Semi Autonomous Government Agency in the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development to champion Poverty Reduction, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (1st & 3rd MDGs respectively) through enterprise development. The Fund is a flagship project in the Vision 2030 development road map.
WEF’s business support services include capacity building, facilitation of local and international marketing of goods produced by women, facilitation of decent work spaces like markets and linkages with larger companies.
Kenyan women to should appreciate that the Vision 2030 must be personalized and owned by each one of them by becoming active participants and consumers of services to positively transform their lives.
The fund has been able to extend loans to women amounting KS. 2.6B to over 645,825 women entrepreneurs. Equally, to date the Fund has trained 116,372 women in loan management and business skills.
On the marketing front, the Fund has continued to promote local and international marketing of goods and services produced by women entrepreneurs. This is evidenced by the recently concluded Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF) held from 28th June to 8th July in which the Fund sponsored a team of 20 women entrepreneurs in partnership with the Export Promotion Council (EPC). Their excellent participation contributed to the Kenyan stand winning the award in the category for the Best Foreign Exhibitor. The dazzling performance is illustrated by the commercial sales of KS.3.9 M and negotiated orders and inquiries amounting to KS. 7 M.